Talk:International Decision Systems

Macie017 (talk) 19:19, 11 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Mainstream

When will this article be mainstream?—Preceding unsigned comment added by Dkordopitoulas (talk • contribs) 16:50, 19 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The short answer is, when we make it a REALLY good article. Please see below. - Hydroxonium (talk) 20:39, 25 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Write artile from a neutral point of view

Please review the article and try to remove anything that might be considered promotional. - Hydroxonium (talk) 08:08, 29 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

An article should describe "what" something is and not how "good" it is. This edit shows the "promotional language" that was removed. - Hydroxonium (talk) 00:56, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Under Business & Markets, why was this considered promotional? "IDS serves over 250 customers across 34 countries which includes approximately 50% of the largest leasing companies in the United States." I feel like this is just a statistical fact. Dkordopitoulas (talk) 18:23, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You are absolutely correct. A lot of what I removed could be in the article. Here is the idea... People will look for any little tiny thing they can find to use for an excuse to delete an article. The statement above could be construed as promotional because it shows how good the company is. The statement shows the company is big, has a lot of customers, and the customers are big, thus showing the company is good. At this point we can only say "what" and not "how good". After the article has been around for a year and edited by 10 or more people, this could be in the article. At this early stage, somebody would use that information against us. - Hydroxonium (talk) 03:02, 1 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Updating references

This part is much harder and requires a lot of digging. Updating references to a standard format helps a great deal. People will spend maybe 10 or 20 seconds looking at the references to see if they are "good". If you format the references in a manner that makes it easier for them, it will help your article to not be deleted. You can look at this edit and this edit too see how I have updated 2 references. Here is how I did it.

Click a link in the references section so I can get info from it
Looked at Category:Citation templates to find an appropriate citation template
Copied the form from the citation template to the "References" section
Added data from the reference link to the citation form
Searched Wikipedia for things that could be wikilinked using [[ and ]] like "Bloomberg Businessweek"
Searched the Internet for ISSN numbers and OCLC numbers and added them
Removed most the blank lines like "| trans_title =" and "| language =".

This is a lot of work, but it is the single thing you can do that will help the most. This is probably confusing, but you should try to update the other references. Please ask questions if you need help. - Hydroxonium (talk) 04:39, 1 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In this edit, I changed the reference from "cite journal" to "cite press release". This is a difficult part to figure out. I could tell it was a press release primarily because it says "For additional information, visit www.idsgrp.com." at the end of the article and because it sounded promotional. I'll talk about references below. - Hydroxonium (talk) 04:38, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I used this edit to update another reference. I went to WorldCat and typed in "Xander Media Group" to search for the ISSN and OCLC numbers for Monitor Daily and found it's only called "Monitor Daily" on the website. The magazine is just called "Monitor". = Hydroxonium (talk) 05:33, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I updated another reference with this edit. Because the way references work, I was able to replace several references with just the name "<ref name="software-listing" />", which makes things easier. - Hydroxonium (talk) 05:53, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I finished updating the references. Here is a before and an after so you can see how people might be critical of one and not the other. - Hydroxonium (talk) 06:50, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Using references

Wikipedia uses references to confirm information. This is called "verifiability" and is one of Wikipedia's most important rules and allows people to verify information is correct. Wikipedia also use references to verify "notability". Notability needs to come from "reliable sources", which are newspapers and similar things that check facts and don't have a "conflict of interest". The "notability" part was the reason used to delete the article. Later, I will show you how to find newspaper articles to satisfy notability. - Hydroxonium (talk) 04:54, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Getting the article "Main stream"

The article still has a number of issues and they point to the article as being an advertisement. Here are the issues.

The users working on the article have not worked on other articles. This is called a Single-purpose account and makes other users belive they are using Wikipedia for advertising purposes.
The article uses press releases for much of the information. Again, this makes the article look like an advertisement.
The article needs to satisfy the notability requirements of Wikipedia meaning we must use verifiable information from reliable sources.

I can't fix #1, only the people working on the article can do that. To fix #2, we will have to remove the information that comes from press releases. To fix #3, we will have to search the Internet to find reliable sources and use only that information.

I will work on #2 and remove the information that comes from press releases. I will also work on #3 and search for information we can use. - Hydroxonium (talk) 21:01, 25 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed the press release information with these three edits 1, 2 and 3. I'm sure this seems drastic, but this is what it takes to get the article "mainstream" and to avoid having the article deleted for being as an advertisement. - Hydroxonium (talk) 21:49, 25 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed the "Key products" section as some users at Wikipedia might view this as advertising. I have also removed the conference info as that doesn't describe the the company, rather it describes something the company did. Again, this probably looks drastic, but this is what it takes to get the article "mainstream". - Hydroxonium (talk) 22:01, 25 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I did one last edit to remove anything that doesn't have a neutral point of view using the most strict standards I can think of. This is what the article looks like now. There is not much left — but — nobody in the world could call this article an advertisement the way it looks now. - Hydroxonium (talk) 22:13, 25 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Building the article

Now that there isn't much to the article, we have to build it up. We must first start with notability. If an article can't satify the notability requirements, it will be deleted. We must use reliable sources for this, otherwise the article will be deleted. That means we can't use press releases or anything that could remotely be considered promotional. The best way to go about this is to be super-critical of everything. This is the same thing other users do when they want to delete an article. So if we are super-critical and only use the best and most reliable sources, then other users can't criticise the article. - Hydroxonium (talk) 22:23, 25 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've started expanding the article and added a "history" section and a reference from a newspaper. Please note that the reference is not a press release and is not promotional in any way. This will help a great deal in getting the article "mainstream". There is some good information in the reference. You may want to read through it and add that information in to the article. - Hydroxonium (talk) 23:07, 25 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I understand not to use press releases. But why delete The Monitor, World Leasing News, Asset Finance International references? They are all reputable news companies focusing on asset finance. 174.46.191.25 (talk) 20:02, 27 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You are correct, they are news sources — but — some of the users here would say that those sources are promotional and then they would use that to justify deleting the article. If we beat them to the punch, and remove those sources, then they can't use them to justify deleting the article. You can think of it this way, if we use those sources, then we a re giving "the other side" ammunition to use against us. So if we take that stuff away they won't have anything to use against us. - Hydroxonium (talk) 02:06, 28 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Could the creator describe how the subject is notable? Why is this company important? At this point, I would tag the article for Speedy Deletion as an advertising piece, even with the trade journals as cites. See: WP:NOTABLE and WP:CSD Saebvn (talk) 02:09, 28 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The creator is a new user that is learning the rules and so probably would have a difficult time answering the question. I was teaching them the rules, but seeing as there are people asking about the article, I'll just go ahead and speed up the process and clean up the article. - Hydroxonium (talk) 02:26, 28 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Overview

Alright, because others have been involved, I really didn't get a chance to show you all the steps thoroughly. So I'll just do an overview.

Our first hurdle is notability. It is best to use information from newspapers as this provides verifiability from reliable sources.
Next, we must write the article from a neutral point of view. This means not using press releases and being extra careful that we don't include anything that might even remotely be considered promotional.

I didn't really get to show you how to find good new sources, but you can ask if you have any questions. I will ask the original deleting admin if we need to fix anything alse. then we'll see if the artcile will go "mainstream". - Hydroxonium (talk) 04:59, 28 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]